12/10/2002

Religion, not Culture, of Peace

The question remains. Is Islam a Religion of Peace? The social, cultural, and political entity is not, by simple fact that counterexamples to peaceful muslims, namely, violent muslims, do exist. QED. But what about the religion itself?

True Islam - even if mis-practiced by a billion Wahabi fanatics, is eternal. It cannot be suppressed. As long as a single Muslim like myself practices it in accordance with the original teachings of the Prophet, it cannot be extinguished from this world. As a Muslim, it's not my place to worry about how Islam is perceived by you. It's to worry about how Islam is practiced by me.

The peaceful message of Islam the Religion itself is clear, apparent even from the crudest translations. Those who espouse a violent interpretation are in violation of the clearest possible aspect of the religion - the Qur'an - and this is why you will never see such a craven dog as Osamam bin Laden even acknowledge the existence of ayats 2:256, 109:6 5:32-33, 2:190, 5:61, and the full version of 4:91.

To argue that Islam has a religious message of intolerance and violence, and that violent interpretations are as valid as non-violent ones, is a complete slander. An anlogy would be to infer from a selective reading of the US Constitution that the Self-Evident Truths mentioned in the Declaration applied only to white males, or that there was no right to free speech, press, or separation of church and state. By ignoring parts of the Constitution, certain people can always invoke other parts of it to justify actions drastically at odds with the intent of the document.

But should Muslims go around parroting the phrase "Religion of Peace" ? No. It's a useless and meaningless excercise. If you believe in the Qur'an, live by its teachings, and leave the opinion making to the opinion makers.